This invention relates to a washing machine for washing clothes in areas that do not have electricity.
According to a Washington Post article, 1.3 billion people live in the dark including 57% of Africans. 7 out of 10 people in sub-Saharan Africa live without reliable access to electricity. 600 million Africans and 300 million Indians live their lives without access to the modern conveniences electricity affords those living in more developed nations. In areas without electricity, human power is used to complete daily chores that are performed using electricity or fossil fuels in more industrialized areas. Laundry, or the washing of clothes has been a part of everyday life for centuries. Before the advent of electricity, humans found various ways to clean their clothes including pounding them on rocks in rivers, to washboards in barrels, to hand agitators, to contemporary electric washing machines.
With the cost of electricity on the rise and the sheer lack of access to electricity in certain areas of the world, a low cost and effective non-electric mobile washer made from repurposed and recycled parts fills a void. By creating a washer that employs human foot/walking power to create the centrifugal and hydrodynamic shear forces needed to wash clothes, instead of electricity, one is able to provide clean clothes to those living in remote areas without electricity.
Lack of access to reliable electricity is not the only issue facing those living in these areas. The lack of time to do washing is a major issue as well. Having to do laundry by hand takes between to 3-6 hours a week to complete, and requires ones full attention and energy; not to mention the pollution washing creates in the streams where clothes are washed. Finding a way to effectively clean clothes without the use of electricity, gas, or fossil fuels, that allows the doer to multitask; e.g., walking from point a to point b would be a huge time savings. “If the doer could be washing on the way to the farmer fields and then use the water for the fields irrigation this would be huge due to water scarcity in Tanzania. It would be a major environmental savings and time savings since we have to often search for waterholes.” (See the bibliography of Exhibit A in which references to all the cites herein are found).
According to research conducted by Andrew Erikson, John Gulliver and Peter Weiss, phosphate pollution is a major problem with respect to sewer water and ground water contamination. Phosphates, although removed from commercial laundry detergents in the U.S., are still found in products produced and sold in Africa and India. Eutrophication, or the enhanced production of primary producers resulting in a less stable ecosystem, is said to be the cause of toxic algae blooms and has been tied to phosphate run off. Phosphates are known to be primary contributors to excessive algae bloom growth and cause an imbalanced relationship between producers and consumers; and, as such, “throws off” the entire ecosystem. To be able to filter off waste water effectively would reduce ground and water contamination. In off-the-grid living conditions, the reduction of the use and consumption of electricity and other pollutants is essential.
This has led the inventor to design a new type of non-electric, centrifugal force, paddle agitated, cart-based washing machine, as described hereinafter, with a strong hydrodynamic shear force capable of removing or reducing stains from clothing, and which incorporates a water filtration system to reduce ground contamination from the waste water produced during washing.
An early attempt (circa 1750's) at such a machine employed washing dollies or shafts that would spin and agitate the clothing inside a wooden barrel. Another agitator driven machine (circa 1790's) was created by a British company. Referred to as the “Yorkshire Maiden”, this machine had a plank that one spun, and as it was spun, there would be churning of the inside of a barrel where soap and clothes were mixed together. This was a non-electric version of modern-day center agitator driven washing machine. William Blackstone created a manual machine consisting of a wooden tub with a set of wooden pegs inside of it that one would fill with hot soapy water. As a handle was then turned, the clothes were caught on the pegs as a way of cleaning them. This machine was also a precursor to modern center agitator designs.
Another off-the-grid washing machine design, called the GiraDora, is made of a plastic tub. A second tub, formed by a colander-like drum is installed inside the outer tub, is mounted on a center post which is connected to a pedal that is used to turn the inside mechanism, agitating the water. After washing, water is drained from the tub and a spin feature, created by turning the inside drum, spins water off the clothes.
This, and other research of manually operated agitators, has proven critical to the inventor developing the washing machine of the present invention. This machine, as described herein, includes a colander pivot vat with side whiffle ball paddles that allows water to rush in and out of the holes in the vat thereby stirring the clothing in a circular fashion.
After investigating ways in which washing machines function, the inventor decided to look into the benefits of leg power versus a crank or arm powered action to operate the machine. She found that the leg strength of the typical individual is seven times stronger than one's arm strength and use of leg power also has the advantage of providing more endurance. (Dean). Walking and pulling a cart based washing machine allows the rotational aspects of a seed spreader to run the washing machine and allows users to complete their laundry chores while travelling from point A to point B. (Dean)
The inventor continued her research by studying the mechanics of seed spreaders and how they employ centrifugal force as they spin seeds in an outward fashion. This included reflecting upon the mechanics utilized and finding the seed spreading disc mechanism used to distribute seeds in an outward fashion (i.e., broadcasting) and which would create a force that would also thrust clothes against the sides of a wash bin when the mechanism is adapted to move water and laundry instead of seeds. She also investigated the use of centrifugal force and circular motion and how their related forces could be used to move clothes and create a hydrodynamic shear force.
Another aspect that was investigated was the design, benefit and advantages of employing filtration using bio-sand with steel wool fibers for the resultant gray water. A report published by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), entitled Greywater Management in Low and Middle-Income Countries, Review of Different Treatment Systems for Households or Neighbourhoods, discusses how countries are learning to deal with water sanitation issues to improve water quality. Using this information, the inventor found that adding a gray water sand filter to her washer provided a viable way to recycle the water after it had been used to wash clothes. According to the Canadian Samaritan's Purse YouTube video “How the BioSand Water Filter Works—Samaritan's Purse CANADA”, the type of filter found to be capable of doing this for a do it yourself (DIY) user was a slow Biosand and rock filter used with a diffuser plate. The way this filter works is that water enters a small reservoir and then passes through the diffuser plate which more or less evenly distributes the water across the sand. After passing through the sand and a steel wool fiber mixture, which traps impurities, the water flows downwardly into pea sized gravel, and then into a larger sized gravel. From there, the water flows out through a hose. This water can now be captured for re-use, possibly for subterranean irrigation in countries in Africa and India where there is currently no legal prohibition governing re-use of gray water.
After completely researching every aspect of her washing machine project, including the benefits that certain elements present with respect to agitation, water flow, hydrodynamic shear force, centrifugal force, and filtration, the inventor has become confident in her ability to develop an off-the-grid laundry system that will effectively clean clothes without the use of electricity or other expensive equipment.